Page 148 of GAF Factor

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she threw herself into my arms. I held her tight and pressed my lips to her head, wishing things were different. Hell, I wish I had never met her so I wouldn’t have to feel this excruciating pain, knowing that I might never see her again.

“You were going to leave me,” she cried.

God, I was such a bastard. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled back and punched me across the jaw. My head snapped to the right and I cupped my jaw, surprised by the hit.

“You’re sorry? Did you just fucking say you’re sorry?”

“Isla—”

“No! You don’t get to say you’re sorry after you got all dressed up in your fancy suit and walked out of here all stone cold and not caring at all that you were walking away from me for good. What the hell was any of this?” she asked, throwing her arms wide. “Did you care for even one fucking minute about me?”

I grabbed her by the arms and pulled her flush against me, my whole body shaking with rage. “I fucking care too much! You are everything to me. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for you. But this all happened before I even met you, and I can’t change that. I can’t just walk away from my old life without the consequences coming back on you, just like they did with Shawn. I have to go or you could end up dead.”

I stepped away from her, cursing under my breath as I turned and pulled myself together. I fucking hated every second of this. I hated her tears and the way she looked at me with thoseaccusing eyes, but I had done this to myself and I had no one else to blame.

“Knox,” she whispered. “I can’t lose you.”

My chest constricted painfully at the ache in her voice. I felt her lace her fingers with mine and press her face to my back. Her other hand slipped around my waist as she held me to her. I clutched her hand to my chest and held on for dear life.

“Let’s run away. We could just leave it all behind,” she begged.

“You could never leave your sister,” I croaked out. “And we’d be running forever. I couldn’t do that to you.”

We stood like that for another five minutes before I knew I couldn’t stay any longer. It wouldn’t change a thing and would make leaving even harder. I peeled her arms from around me and cupped both hands around her cheeks, pressing one last kiss to her lips.

“Brightest fucking spark of my life,” I whispered. Then I walked out the door.

36

ISLA

It didn’t take longafter the tears dried for me to realize that losing IKE might actually kill me. I’d already lost Kavanaugh and that was hard enough. Even his texts asking how I was doing weren’t really enough to gain back his friendship.

But what I had with IKE was so much more real than with Kavanaugh. There weren’t lies between us. There was no wall keeping us apart, and I knew things about him that he hadn’t shared with anyone else. Yet, Kavanaugh just couldn’t open up to me, and I had a feeling no matter how long I stayed with him, he never would.

I dropped the blanket on the ground and rushed upstairs, naked as the day I was born, and threw on anything I could find that was clean. I hadn’t showered and my hair was a ratty mess, but none of that mattered right now. I had to find a way to save IKE. He had done it plenty of times for me. I couldn’t fail him now when he needed me most.

“Hey, I’m home!” Riley shouted from downstairs. “Oh, God! Don’t tell me you guys did it on the living room floor again!”

I ignored her as I continued dressing. I didn’t have time to explain any of this to her. I ran downstairs, taking them two at a time and nearly killing myself on the last step. Riley spun andstared at me with wide eyes as I rushed over to the living room, throwing things around as I searched for my keys under the clothes thrown all around the room.

“Uh…hello?”

“I don’t have time to talk. I have to save IKE’s life.”

“Is he missing? Did he shrink and now he’s hiding under these clothes?” she teased.

I found my coat and shoved my hand in the pocket to dig around. “He had to go back to his job and they might kill him.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “So, why did he go back?”

“You know,” I muttered. “Same reason men do anything. Honor, glory, saving the day, keeping me safe. Where are my damn keys!”

“I don’t suppose you’ve thought about the fact that maybe you should stay out of it and let him handle this.”

“His idea of handling it is to go to the meeting,” I argued. “Does that sound like a good plan to you?”

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